Situational (Un)Awareness

I’ve been following events in Iran between news sources and Twitter (the latter is a lot more interesting), and I’ve noted President Obama’s (hereafter PBO) lack of a strong response other than “the world is watching.”

Well, Mr. Prez, the world’s been watching for a while. Remember, we’re talking about the same group of people that, not too long ago, you said had the right to nuclear power for peaceful purposes. See North Korea for a good example of how a rogue state’s “peaceful” nuclear programs work. And some stauncher (?) neoconservatives than I consider the Iranian takeover of our past embassy there the first shot in a war with Islamofacism (or “World War 4,” depending on your point of view).

So we’ve had our eyes on Iran for a while.

Alas, I know why you’re playing both sides of the situation on the ground there:

First, you’ve got no campaign promise to the Iranians that you need to keep. You told the Iraqis that you’d be out of their country quickly. Check; we’re on the way out. You told the world we’d shut down Gitmo. Check-sort of. Every military decision you’ve made to date has been on the basis of a campaign promise that you needed to fulfill or a half-hearted attempt to “improve America’s standing in the world.” So I can’t criticize you for not taking any other action on the Iranian unrest other than using “strong language” (and again, see North Korea for how much “strong language” matters)-you are, at least being consistent. There’s nothing in Iran for you, strategically or politically (except that little waterway called the Strait of Hormuz, but the Navy can handle that).

On the flipside of that, though, are all your statements that Iran shouldn’t/can’t have a nuclear weapon. Now, I know full well that you weren’t going to do anything to stop them from developing one, and that any military action against an Iranian nuclear program would be left to the Israelis (and probably without our covert/overt support). Well, there’s a lot of people currently pissed off in Iran, and they’re not working, so…if there’s protests, no one’s building bombs, right? So it benefits you to not take a side on the chance that you’d take the wrong side and end up paying for it later.

Most smart people know how this is gonna end: the protests are going to be met with a bloody, violent response from the Iranian theocrats (more so than what’s already taken place). Though I know you’re not gonna do much about that, it would be nice to see you do something other than take the “words matter” track.

If the world’s truly watching, park a carrier off the Iranian coast just to make sure we’re catching everything. Or get NSA a Twitter account.

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Coby Dillard, a conservative Republican blogger and military veteran in Norfolk, Virginia, criticizes what he calls U.S. President Obama’s lack of strong response: “Most smart people know how this is gonna end: the protests are going to be met with a…